Prime Kapital leads the way for green infrastructure in Romania and builds a portfolio of EDGE certified buildings across the country.
| Project Name | Prime Kapital Portfolio |
| Location | Romania (various) |
| Building Type | Retail |
| Buildings Certified | 9 buildings |
| Total Floor Area Certified | 142,263 m² |
| Certification Level | EDGE Advanced |
| Duration of certification | 18 months from registration to completion |
Project Overview
Prime Kapital is an integrated real estate developer, investor and operator in CEE with a special focus on Romania. The focus of the group is on commercial real estate and residential projects. The sustainability and environmental impact of its developments have long been a key consideration for Prime Kapital across the entire project development process, as part of its active contribution to mitigate the effects climate change. In addition, setting high sustainability standards for its projects has proven to deliver additional direct benefits in terms of operational cost savings and external funding cost benefits. In the latter area, Prime Kapital’s core driver for using EDGE for purposes of sustainability certification requirements is the credibility and standing of EDGE among banks and institutions for the purpose of accessing green finance.
In March 2022, Prime Kapital announced that it had raised a €125 million syndicated green loan facility for its development joint-venture with MAS plc,a real estate investor listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. As part of this multi-property syndicated facility, Prime Kapital required certification of a portfolio of buildings under EDGE to independently verify their environmental credentials and ensure compliance with applicable green loan requirements.
The multi-tranche facility is provided by a consortium of four domestic and international banks and was raised on a project finance basis for five new commercial retail properties, which Prime Kapital recently opened in Romania and a sixth one currently under development. These were Zalau Value Center, Dambovita Mall (in Targoviste), Sepsi Value Center (in Sfantu Gheorghe), Barlad Value Center, Prahova Value Centrer (in Ploiesti), as well as the retail mall project currently under construction in Alba Iulia.
Each of the 6 projects that have been certified under the EDGE certification programme achieved resource savings at exceptional levels. Located in 6 different cities across Romania and with a total floor area of 142,263 square metres, the commercial centres in question will save annually 5,745 tons of carbon dioxide, 162, 762 m3 of water and 14,889 MWH of energy.
Sepsi Value Center was one of the first projects to be certified with EDGE, with the total process from submission to certification spanning just 8 months. Sepsi Value Centre is the first shopping centre of its kind in Covasna county. The center has several fashion outlets, cafés with outdoor terraces, a food court and 700 parking spaces. The development has also created over 600 new jobs in the region. Sepsi Value Center achieved 50% energy savings, 38% water savings and a 58% reduction in embodied energy used in materials. This equates to an impressive 670 tons of CO2 saved per year. EDGE was used not as a retrofit strategy but rather to quantify Prime Kapital’s design efforts. Some of the measures that helped Sepsi Value Center to achieve certification were the use of reflective paint for roof tiles and external walls as well as the insulation of the roof and walls, using air economisers during favourable outdoor conditions and using variable speed drives on fans of cooling towers, in air handling units and pumps.
Why EDGE?
Sustainability has long been a key aspect of Prime Kapital’s developments. The company actively targets the optimisation of resource efficiency on basis which benefits the environment with substantial incidental benefits in the form of savings in operational costs and funding costs. EDGE was used mostly to validate Prime Kapital’s approach to sustainability. As a group that has integrated resource efficiency into its design, procurement and construction process, EDGE certification has been an important validation of its approach and achievements to date.
Prime Kapital continuously actively assesses its approach to sustainability and the environmental impact of its projects and operations, so as to ensue constant improvement of design standards and related project processes.. Design work, which is an integrated part of the groups operations, benefits from continuous improvement through the application of lessons learned from previous experiences. The group uses operational data to improve their developments and inform future designs. EDGE has been a useful tool as part of this process, as it allows Prime Kapital to see the quantifiable improvements their design elements have made towards resource efficiency. This data is then used to build foundations for future developments and make improvements to existing ones.
What’s Next?
Prime Kapital is strongly committed to sustainable and energy efficient solutions to real estate and intends to obtain EDGE certification on all of its projects, both new and existing. The group aims to have all existing buildings certified by the end of the year and will certify new developments as they are developed.
